


Rehabilitation

by Mikkeneko



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, Recovery, Short & Sweet, discussion of tranquility
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 12:15:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13787553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mikkeneko/pseuds/Mikkeneko
Summary: A cure for Tranquility has been found, but what kind of life is waiting for them after? Avexis approaches the question of whether to take the cure or not the same way the Tranquil approach anything: methodically.





	Rehabilitation

**Author's Note:**

> Some discussion on Tumblr had popped up about how you as the Inquisitor can institute recovery and support for Templars going off lyrium, but no equivalent support for mages recovering from Tranquility -- and someone suggested an Inquisition sponsored farmhouse. With nugs. And Cole.

When they ask her, Avexis is quiet for a long time as she ponders the question. At last she says, “Show me.”

She goes with them out of Skyhold, bundled in furs across the snowy mountain passes until they descend into Orlais, each switchback downwards a journey from winter into some warmer season.

The camp has been set up in the Emerald Dales, in a quiet vale protected on three sides by mountains; a waterfall pours off wintermelt into a brook that burbles its way on towards the sea. The cluster of buildings arranged between the banks of the river and the stands of maple and elm that lead up the slopes are new, fresh-cut logs and boards, but the construction careful and sturdy for all that.

This is Inquisitor Trevelyan’s pet project, she’s heard; set up as part of an arrangement with Fairbanks’ crowd of refugees and part of a mutual agreement with the Dalish. Inquisition aid for each of them in exchange for this space, for them to protect and provide for the people housed within the vale.

People, Avexis ponders, as they round the cliff wall and they come in sight, they call them people.

There are a few different kinds of people housed in the valley. Some wear familiar Circle robes, other plain woolen and linen clothes, a few in hard leather armor. No silver plate anywhere. Some move around on tasks – gathering firewood, tending to outdoor kitchens or feeding animals – and some just sit around, on the porches of the small cabins or rocks or tree stumps out the river, just staring. Most of those people have sunburst brands on their heads, like her.

But they are not like her; some of them smile and laugh, others frown and weep. They do so freely, without censure from any of the unbranded folk around them; when the storms of grief get too strong they fall to their knees and throw their arms around the shoulders of a hound who bears up against their weight and does their best to lick the tears from their face.

“Where do the dogs come from?” Avexis wonders, and one of her escorts answers her.

“From Ferelden, mostly,” he says; “–not all mabari, or not purebreds, they’re mostly the culls from the King’s war stables. Too small to ever make it as war hounds, but they’re still as smart and loyal as the rest of their kind.”

Avexis watches for a while, observing the Tranquil – the ex-Tranquil – and their helpers. She recognizes some faces from Skyhold: there’s Minaeve, sorting carefully through a pile of cured leathers, and there’s Cole, the spirit boy, flitting from place to place at the very edge of vision, coming to a stop sitting beside one of the weeping men with what looks like a book held in his hands. There’s a tall man with golden eyes and a prodigious nose, a receding hairline over a high forehead showing lighter roots under the solid brown color of his hair;  he’s stooping over one of the younger Tranquil with a soft blue glow coming from his hands and she thinks she ought to recognize him, but she does not.

She turns to her escort. “But what about demons?” she said, voice level and flat. “Surely the terrible storms of emotion from the mages here must attract them.”

Her escort nods as though he expected the question. “Aye, that’s a risk,” he agrees. “But the Inquisitor came up with a plan of some kind; brought in the Avvar Sigrid to put up some kind of precautions. Friendly spirits the Avvar keep tame they say, patrol the edge of the village and keep demons away.”

Utilizing spirits to keep out spirits? It seems impossible, absurd, yet the enclave seems at peace, no storms of uncontrolled magic or twisting tearing wrongness of demonic incursions. And nowhere, no matter where she looks, are there helmets and shields and swords bearing that terrible crest.

“No Templars?” she asks, and the other escort – who has been quiet up till now – shakes her head slowly.

“No Templars,” they agree.

She turns back to regard the enclave, carefully shielded from the world outside and quiet, so quiet. The fall of the water in the background provides a dull rumble, a soothing white blanket of noise. Dogs trot through the streets, and halla flit through the woods at the edge of sight; there’s a rustling in the branches, a ripple of movement through the grass. Birds and rabbits, she thinks, though it’s been so long since she spoke with one that she can’t be sure. 

The walls are wood, not stone, and there are no Templars, no Templars at all.

She turns back to her escort. “Yes,” she says. “I want to get better.”


End file.
